Ice Cube shuts Bill Maher down after he used the 'N-word' on live TV

There's a lot of controversy surrounding the N-word, and you'd think people by now wouldn't even risk saying it, but there's always a few people who speak before they think, even TV hosts.

On last weeks episode of "Real Time" with Bill Maher, the comedian host used the N-word to refer to himself as a “house ni**er.” That fired up Ice Cube who appeared on the show this week to address the issue.

“I love your show,” said Cube. “But you be buckin’ up against that line a little bit. You got a lot of black jokes. Sometimes you sound like a redneck trucker. My thing is this…I just wanna know…What made you think that it was cool to say that?”

Maher responded: “There was no thought put into it. Comedians, they react. It was wrong and I apologize.”

It's moments like these that Ice Cube is happy to forgive and use as a “teachable moment,” explaining why the terrible word hurts.

“I accept your apology... But I still think we need to get to the root of the psyche because I think there’s a lot of guys out there who cross the line because they’re a little too familiar or they think they’re too familiar, or it’s guys that might have a black girlfriend or two that made them some Kool-Aid every now and then. They think they can cross the line and they can’t."

It’s a word that’s been used against us. It’s like a knife.

“You can use it as a weapon or you can use it as a tool. It’s been used as a weapon against us by white people. We’re not gonna let that happen again by nobody. It’s not cool. Now, I know you heard. It’s in the lexicon. Everybody talkin’, but that’s our word now and you can’t have it back.”

Maher apologized earlier in the week for using the racial slur.

“I regret the word I used in the banter of a live moment,” he said. “The word was offensive and I regret saying it and I’m very sorry.”